Objective: The purpose of this study was to clarify whether a perineal massage education program for primiparas changes the implementation rate of perineal massage and the factors that influence its implementation. Methods: This is a historical controlled trial. The intervention group consisted of 53 primiparous women over 35 gestational weeks who practiced perineal massage after participating in the educational program. The control group consisted of 59 women who had already completed delivery and filled out a questionnaire. Results: The rate of perineal massage was significantly higher in the intervention group at 83.0% than in the control group at 64.4% (p=0.026). The incidence of perineal lacerations was 36.4% in the intervention group and 42.9% in the control group. In the intervention group, 38.2% of the women began perineal massage on the day of the program, and 90% began it within one week. Over half of the respondents were motivated to practice perineal massage because of prevention of perineal laceration, distribution of massage oil, and explanation using the perineum model. In both groups, the most common reason for not carrying out perineal massage was emotional resistance to touching their perineum. Conclusions: The educational program was found to improve the rate of perineal massage by pregnant women, which suggests that the adequate provision of tools and visual aids for massage contributed to the high rate of the practice. Along with the importance of motivation for implementation, this study also suggests the need for follow-up to ensure that pregnant women could continue perineal massage until delivery.

View full abstract

OBJECTIVE: To develop a Japanese version of the Nurses Clinical Reasoning Scale (NCRS) to measure the clinical reasoning ability of nurses, and to evaluate the scale's reliability and validity in acute care hospitals. METHODS: A self-administered questionnaire was completed by 370 nurses from four acute care hospitals. RESULTS: The number of valid responses was 143 (valid response rate: 39.7%) and 44 (valid response rate: 25.1%) for the main survey and retest, respectively. Fifteen items from the Japanese version of the NCRS had Cronbach's alpha coefficients of .942 and intraclass correlation coefficients of .862 for the retest. One factor was extracted in the exploratory factor analysis, and the factor loadings for each item ranged from .603 to .813. A confirmatory factor analysis revealed that the goodness-of-fit indices were GFI=.899, AGFI=.855, CFI=.974, and RMSEA=.054, slightly below the recommended criteria. NCRS scores for nurses with three or fewer years of experience were significantly lower than those for nurses with four or more years of experience, confirming the known group validity based on years of experience. CONCLUSION: The Japanese version of the NCRS demonstrated a certain degree of reliability and validity for measuring the clinical reasoning skills of nurses in acute care hospitals. It is expected to contribute to its enhancement.

View full abstract

Objective: To develop a scale measuring nurse dedication in patient-nurse relationships and to examine the reliability and validity of this scale. Methods: A questionnaire-based survey was conducted on approximately 1,500 nurses. The answers were analyzed by item analysis and Cronbach's alpha was calculated to examine the reliability by the split-half method. The validity was examined by exploratory factor analysis in the examination of the construct validity, and confirmatory factor analysis in the examination of the goodness of fit of the two-dimensional factor model. Criterion-related validity was also examined using a related scale. Results: The answers of 461 nurses were analyzed. The exploratory factor analysis revealed 12 items in four factors, namely “respect,” “devotion,” “foresight” and “concern” as subfactors in the scale measuring nurse dedication in patient-nurse relationships. The confirmatory factor analysis affirmed the two-dimensional factor model and confirmed the construct validity. Cronbach's alpha ranged from.72 to .81. The internal consistency and a certain extent of criterion-related validity were also confirmed. Conclusions: The reliability and validity of the scale measuring nurse dedication in patient-nurse relationships were approximately confirmed.

View full abstract

Purpose: To verify the skin moisturizing and antibacterial effects of a test hand lotion containing indigo components. Method: Three groups of subjects: N (lotion base only), n = 20; A (+ ethanol), n = 19; and T (tryptanthrin +indigo + ethanol), n = 16. In a single-blind study, the hand lotion preparations were used for 30 days. The skin moisture content was measured with a portable skin moisture meter at the dorsal center of the dominant hand, the center of the palm, and the pad of the thumb. Hand lotion was applied, and 10 min later the palm of the dominant hand was pressed onto trypto-soy agar medium on a Petri dish. After incubation for 24 h, the number of microbial colonies was counted. Results in groups N and A were compared with results in group T. Results: Skin moisture content on the dorsum of the hand significantly increased in group N and on the palm of the hand significantly decreased in group A, but did not change in group T. No formulation of hand lotion decreased the number of bacterial colonies. Conclusion: Hand lotion containing tryptanthrin did not have any obvious skin protective effect.

View full abstract

This study aimed to clarify how self-management can improve the daily lives of hypertensive patients who have a job. The study conducted semi-structured interviews for seven well-controlled hypertensive patients who have a job. Interview data were analyzed qualitatively and descriptively, and seven behaviors for self-management were categorized from the data. These include “taking creative measures to cope with changes in the rhythm of life caused by work,” “combining exercise with work,” “habituation of self-management behavior,” “taking an interest in one's own body,” “having a blood pressure-conscious diet,” “taking actions to reduce the burden on one's own body,” and “receiving support from family members and incorporating it into one's daily life.” These results suggest the importance of helping hypertensive patients who work to self-manage their daily activities so that they can incorporate the necessary behaviors for blood pressure stabilization into their daily working lives.

View full abstract

Objective: This review aimed to clarify the association of rotating shift work, including night shifts, with the menstrual cycle through meta-analysis of previous studies. Methods: Four electronic database searches and hand searches were conducted using search terms such as rotating shift work and menstruation for Japanese and English literature published up to February 2024. Inclusion criteria were as follows: The subjects were menstruating women, exposure was rotating shift work including night shifts, the comparison group was non-rotating shift work without night shifts, outcome was irregular menstrual cycles, long or short menstrual cycles, and menstrual duration, and the study design was observational. The DerSimonian-Laird method was used in the meta-analysis. Results: Twelve articles were included in this review. In the rotating shift work group, five of six articles indicated an increased risk of irregular menstrual cycles, four of six indicated an increased risk of long menstrual cycles, and three of seven indicated an increased risk of short menstrual cycles. The meta-analysis showed that the rotating shift work group had a significantly higher risk of irregular menstrual cycles [odds ratio (95% confidence interval) = 1.51 (1.32–1.72), integrated from five articles (n=17822)] and long menstrual periods [1.70 (1.00–2.87), integrated from five articles (n=10225)] than the comparison group. In contrast, no association was found between rotating shift work and short menstrual periods or abnormal menstrual durations in the meta-analyses. Conclusion: Women who work rotating shifts, including night shifts, need to understand the risks of irregular and long menstrual cycles so that abnormalities can be detected early.

View full abstract

This study investigated the effects of individual perceptions of failure on psychological safety in nursing students. A survey was administered to 248 college students majoring in nursing, and the data was analyzed for the group of respondents as a whole and for each academic year. The results of multiple regression analysis showed that first-year students perceived failure as something that aroused negative emotions, and as something that would inevitably occur, and this influenced their psychological safety. For fourth-year students, failure was perceived as an opportunity for learning, and this influenced their psychological safety. These results suggest that perceptions of failure that influence the psychological safety of students may change over time. Future studies should investigate relationships between psychological safety and perceptions of failure in more detail, and explore approaches to improving aspects of psychological safety that are associated with individual perceptions of failure.

View full abstract

PURPOSE: This study aimed to clarify the changes in sleep before and after the implementation of a sleep improvement program based on digital brief behavioral therapy for insomnia (dBBT-I). METHODS: This was a 3.5-month longitudinal study of university students. After obtaining consent, a two-week sleep improvement program was implemented using dBBT-I. Participants were asked to respond to questions about background factors, sleep status and mental health questions at four time points before and after the program. The analysis compared sleep conditions before and after the program using the McNemar test. RESULTS: Consent was obtained from 157 participants, and 131 (83.4%) responded before the program. The response rate of participants was 90 (68.7%) after three months, and 67 (51.1%) participants responded on all four occasions. The mean Athens Insomnia Scale (AIS) showed significant improvement in sleep. CONCLUSION: Approximately 70% of participants undergoing dBBT-I continued the program, and improvement in insomnia was observed when the AIS was used. In contrast, some of the participants did not observe an improvement with their insomnia after completing the dBBT-I. Those affected by insomnia should be encouraged to follow up by using appropriate health resources to ensure improvement.

View full abstract

As shown in the Federal Plain Language Guidelines (The Plain Language Action and Information Network, 2011), professionals are required to possess the requisite communication skills to explain terms to the public in an appropriate, simple, and easy-to-understand manner. Physicians and medical and pharmacy students have conducted most of the research on the recognition and understanding of technical terms, but only a few studies have revealed the degree of recognition and understanding of terminology among nursing students. Therefore, we conducted a cross-sectional survey of nursing students recognition and understanding of nursing practice terms, alongside the factors related to their recognition and understanding, using nursing practice terms that nursing students' must understand as clues. Completion of the course “Clinical Practices in Basic Nursing I” was associated with the recognition of the term “warm compress” (p=0.023) and understanding of the term “provide internal medicine” (p=0.013). Upon completion, the course itself was associated with the recognition of 17 out of 20 terms, excluding “bed-making,” “transfers,” and “positioning,” and was correlated with the understanding of all 20 terms. The survey found that almost all of the terms studied were recognized and understood in conjunction with the curriculum. However, two educational challenges were identified: some nursing practice terms had low recognition levels, and some had retained recognition levels but were poorly understood.

View full abstract